By limiting its turnovers and making a concerted effort to get back on defense, Wisconsin did much to negate what’s become the staple of Indiana’s offense in its 2012-2013 campaign: Quick, easy buckets ahead of the defense. The Hoosiers only scored three fast-break points and just seven off of turnovers.

Yet, the Hoosiers also strung together some impressive defense during a stretch in the second half, as the Badgers failed to hit a field goal for over seven minutes. It allowed Indiana to close the gap on its largest deficit of the season (10 points all the way down to one after a Yogi Ferrell 3-pointer at the 4:42 mark) before the Badgers scored on back-t0-back possessions to punch the lead back out to five, a gap the Hoosiers were unable to close.

A look at two Wisconsin defensive stands as well as two by the Hoosiers in the latest edition of Film Session:

I. Off a Wisconsin made 3-pointer, Indiana quickly gets the ball in and Yogi Ferrell flies down the court:

But Wisconsin has everyone back and packed in the paint as Ferrell looks to get inside the arc. He retreats and Indiana now must make a go of it in the halfcourt. The lineup here also puts Indiana at an offensive disadvantage, at least on this night. It features the bench — Remy Abell, Will Sheehey, Jeremy Hollowell (who already scored the group’s only points of the night) — and Christian Watford. Cody Zeller had been dominating the first half, but he’s not in during this stretch:

Watford sets a ball screen for Ferrell:

He hands it off to Abell who curls back up top:

Ferrell again gets a ball screen from Watford. Ben Brust goes under the screen to meet Ferrell at the free throw line:

And Ferrell must again retreat:

Brust doesn’t come play Ferrell tight, a strategy the Badgers employed for much of the evening. They dared Yogi to shoot. He does with 11 seconds remaining on the shot clock. It misses:

Not the sexiest of plays from either end, but by not allowing Indiana a quick score and getting back, Wisconsin’s halfcourt defense was able to get Indiana into a shot it didn’t mind the team taking.

Video:

II. After a Wisconsin bucket to open the second half, we again see Indiana try and speed up the court. Victor Oladipo is barely all the way out of bounds before he passes into Ferrell:

But as Ferrell brings it up, only two other Hoosiers are in the picture: Zeller and Jordan Hulls. Wisconsin, meanwhile, has all five defenders back:

Yet, Indiana is still is able to get a quick look here. Watford fills the left wing and gets a pass from Ferrell. Ryan Evans jumps out on him:

And by closing and playing the 3-pointer, Watford gains an advantage by driving on him. Traevon Jackson — who earlier in the game forced Oladipo into a turnover on a fast break — sees Watford coming to the rim and moves down to the left block:

Jackson does a great job here. He gets outside the arc and plays Watford straight up:

The Birmingham native — who’s struggles at the rim are no secret by now; remember he also hit the side of the backboard late in this one — decides to do a 180 in the air, instead of jumpstopping, spinning or otherwise. It leads to a missed bucket and opportunity for IU:

Video:

III. Indiana’s defense now. On an inbounds play, Hulls switches from Brust onto Evans, which leaves Brust open for a 3-pointer. Watford sees the ball being inbounded to him and begins to close out:

He does a great job of doing so and Wisconsin doesn’t get an easy look here:

10 seconds later and Wisconsin has four player beyond the arc:

And at 12 seconds to go, Indiana continues to keep the Badgers away from the bucket:

Evans makes a move to try and free himself with the shot clock winding down, but Watford — who did a good job of closing out earlier in this position and who now has switched back to his man — just doesn’t allow him any room at all to get a shot off. And his only options are all beyond the arc:

So he passes up top to Sam Dekker, who takes a deep, contested 3-pointer. This is a low-percentage shot. It misses:

Dan Dakich on the call: “They can’t beat their man individually, Mike. Look how far out their offense is. Offense way out on the floor. When you have that, when you have your man locked up, you know you have your man locked up — you’re hot defensively right now Indiana is. They know they can guard individually.”

Video:

IV. Here’s another possession during that stretch in the second half where IU’s man-to-man defense was fantastic. Here we see Zeller marking Jared Berrgren out past the arc:

Watford and Hulls force the action on the right wing even further outside the arc:

And as the ball comes the other way, Wisconsin is now out near halfcourt:

Hulls is left to pick up Berrgren, which leaves his man, Brust, open. He calls for the ball:

But Hulls hustles over and closes out:

This gives Brust the opportunity to go right around him — something that happened on more than one occasion during this game. But Oladipo plays great team defense here, setting his body and drawing a charge. Turnover Bucky:

Like I posted on another thread . Our D was good enough to win. Our offense , which is our alleged strength was not.

IUMIKE1

Examples 1 & 2 are just that, examples of two majors drawbacks for IU right now. Yogi struggles to be consistent from outside and a 6′ 9″ & 235 pound CW can’t drive to the rim and finish over or around a freshman guard when he has full head of steam and the guard doesn’t even jump. A 3 pt attempt from the distance of where he first catches the ball would have been a higher percentage shot than the one he ended up taking. I guess the upside is it wasn’t as ugly as the one he threw into the side of the backboard later on. If he has to go into that difficult of a shot to shoot over a flat footed, standing still guard, then just kick it back out and set something else up. Yogi looked to be the one that would have been the most likely to be on the receiving end of a kick out from him. Even though Yogi is struggling from behind the arc it still would have been a higher percentage shot than the one he threw up there. Most people, myself included, feel like Yogi will get his half of this thing corrected with time. Any kind of change that CW was going to make in going up and finishing around the rim better, regardless of the height & weight differential of the defender, would already have happened if it was going to. Like Ryan says his problems with being able to finish around the rim are well documented and have been a problem from his first days. So why do we have to ask the question, why does a senior & a four year starter continue to do such things instead of doing the things that he, and everyone else, knows that he does do well, yet again ?

SCHoosier

Credit that to WIS which had only 8 TO’s,..got back on D limiting our transition..on our side Yogi couldn’t hit a shot and Jordy couldn’t find one.

inadvertentelbows_stillhurt

B1G teams are going to continue to run IU off the 3pt line TC has to make some adjustments .Wis let Cody make easy catches in the post the 1st half of the game while crowding shooters…then played the exact opposite in the 2nd half and IU didn’t attack the rack when shots wouldn’t fall…

inadvertentelbows_stillhurt

Is it time to dial down practices a little during B1G play? We seemed to keep guys banged up in practice..Elston and Sheehey need to be healthy for IU to make a run at B1G Tourney …just a thought

inadvertentelbows_stillhurt

Is it time to dial down practices a little during B1G play? We seemed to keep guys banged up in practice..Elston and Sheehey need to be healthy for IU to make a run at B1G Tourney …just a thought

Oldguyy

IMO, the defense was subpar for the first three-quarters of the game.

PDXHoosier

What do we do when teams sag off of Yogi and dare him to shoot? Of our 5 starters, he’s the one that teams will leave open to help out on others.

sloan screen #45

Example 1 pretty much sums up what I have been saying all along. What were they trying to do? No actual picks, no postups and no hard cuts towards the basket. I dont see where we were trying to get the ball.

scott berryman

Perimeter screen 19 feet out. Oh, here comes another perimeter screen 19 feet out. Looky here, a perimeter screen at 18 feet out. Nothing but perimeter screens with absolutely zero cuts to the baskets or screens where an IU player is moving toward the basket. We might as well run the weave all night long because essentially that is what we are doing out front. It just sickens me that we have the athletes we do and get nothing out of it.
Please answer this, when is the last time we saw a baseline or high post screen that resulted in an alley opp dunk? Which proves my point that we do nothing but set weak perimeter screens. No one ever screens away, down screens, etc.

sloan screen #45

Come on Mike we almost lost this guy to the NBA last year.( He said with tons of sarcasm)

ncHOOSIER82

What all good point guards learn to do. Shoot and shoot well. He has already hit big 3’s. Keep chucking.

IUalumatVirginia

This write up makes it sound like Wisconsin played their offense often far out in the court because IU forced that. I think this is misleading. Wisconsin played a high-court offsense against IU’s man to man defense. By doing this, they pulled IU away from the basket (Zeller and Watford notably), and as they weaved through screens, this process often opened up sudden one on one drives by Wisconsin players, which is hard to defend, even when players like Wisconsin are not among the most athletic across the board, compared to IU, Michigan, etc. This high-court weaving offense was part of Bo Ryan’s genius in this game, and IU partly fell for it. For the life of me, I don’t know why TC didn’t put IU more often into a 2-3 zone, to mitigate the weaving and force Wisconsin to shoot more threes, which statistics show they are not often top-notch at.

Brady Adams

we have to be consistent….on a night where defense looked like old Bobby Knight’s work we only had 2 of are top players score in double digits WE HAVE TO PUSH THE BALL we are the fastest team in the country we even shoot the 3 ball off quick offensive sets if we are going to play exceptional defense then why can’t they get their a$$ up the floor it wasn’t because wisconsin’s D was better it’s because we let them get too comfortable getting back on defensive

Brady Adams

defense*

IUMIKE1

All jokes aside, he probably had a better chance of being drafted last year than he is going to have this year cause I can’t see any area where he has improved his draft stock up to this point. If he wants to continue to play bball and get paid for it he had better strongly consider purchasing something to help him learn a second language. That is unless he is going to have some kind of epiphany and all of a sudden, ” flip the switch “, and I highly doubt that’s gonna happen.